Three simple steps to help you get the right mix!

by Coach Brendon

Swim, Bike Run and Life can be a difficult act to get right - it's a real juggling act. Here are three simple steps to help any triathlete get the basics right in terms of balance.

Step One: Make a weekly plan of available time

Clearly, the first thing you have to do is decide how much time you are prepared to commit to training. If you don't it's easy for triathlon to suddenly overtake your life and 'suck' you in. By taking a step back and making a rational decision about you maximum weekly commitment you are taking control and avoiding a lot of potential problems.

So how much time do you NEED to commit. Not all of us have the natural ability of a pro athlete and/or the commitment to being a world-class triathlete. If triathlon is not your profession it's not going to be practical to commit 25 hours a week to training. But don't become despondent, because you can easily complete a ½ Ironman on 10 hours of training per week, Oympic Distance on about 6 and Sprint Distance on as little as 4 hours per week. I also know many athletes that have successfully done Ironman on 15 hours, and often only in the last few months (however for Ironman I generally advise a little more in the key weeks to make race day a bit easier!)

Here is an example of a typical weekly schedule:

If the event you are aiming for is more than 4 months away, you might decide to make a weekly plan for the first ½ and then review it closer to the event.

If you are working on a regular weekly pattern you need to look at your week and schedule available time. Make a schedule like the following:

Total 7-11 hours per week.

· If you are on shift work then you should make your "week" be the shift rotation schedule, so for a 12 day cycle you would need to do a 12 day "week"
· Don't forget to include some time for socialising and doing other things. In the above example we are going to keep the afternoons and evenings free (except Monday, because on Mondays the person in the example finds it hard to get up and train - sound familiar?!).
· You may want to talk to your friends and see what their schedule looks like so that you can coordinate some sessions.

Step Two: Determine the amount of time per discipline

Ok, so lets take the example program above of 7-11 hours per week and 6 sessions per week - we now need to ask how do you use this time most effectively?

This is where a good coach comes to the rescue! Here are some guidelines...

Of course the choice of events is going to be the first major factor determining how to proportion training. If you are preparing for a ½ Ironman its got very different ratios to a sprint triathlon.

Let's assume that you are fairly well balanced in all three sports (a novice in all three would be a good example). Until you do some training you won't know which disciplines you are able to pick up the quickest. So to work out how much time to spend on each discipline we need to look and see how each discipline contributes to your overall performance.

We know from analysing short course triathlon race performances that, on average, the swim contributes about 15-20% to your final placing, the bike contributes about 50% and your run about 30-35%. So logically we want to proportion a similar amount of training time to easy discipline.

If you are training for ½ Ironman or Ironman the swim is a little less important (once you know you can cover the distance comfortably!) so the ratios are more like Swim 10%, Bike 55%, Run 35%.

Competitive triathletes do need to spend more time swimming, especially if competing in the Draft Legal format races. In the ITU World Championship Races and World Cup events swim time can be the difference between a DNF and ITU ranking points and money to get to the next event! Analysis of their events shows that the swim makes up about 25% of their final placing, the bike 30% and the run 45%. But elite athletes are generally not limited to the amount of time in a week that they can commit to training, so they end up doing a lot in each discipline!

So back to reality! If we have 10 hours for training towards a Sprint or Olympic Distance Triathlon we would want to spend 1.5-2 hours swimming, 5 hours cycling and 3-3.5 hours running and if we have 10 hours for training before a ½ Ironman we would want to spend 1 hour swimming, 5.5 hours biking and 3.5 hours running.

From this basis you can then adjust depending on your abilities and past experience (both recent and distant!)

If you are brand new to swimming when you start triathlon, this is often the most daunting - at least with running you can just stop and walkwhen you become tired! Wetsuits have gone a long way towards making many beginners much more comfortable with the swim but it still helps if you are very confident with the distance. In the very initial stages of beginning triathlon training I like to see people over emphasize the swim until they reach the point of being comfortable with the distance. In the program example above, you might add ½ hour to your swimming and take away a ½ hour from your running.

If you come into triathlon from a running background (i.e. have run for a while and have maybe done a 10km or a ½ Marathon), then your initial programme might be weighted towards the swim and bike. Similarly if you come from swimming or cycling background you should look to do a bit more in the 'new' disciplines. Of course you don't want to fully neglect your strength, so you need to adjust rather than cut out - you might adjust by 5-10% on the above guidelines.

Step Three: Fit the Scheduled Time into the week!

Now that you will have established how much time to spend, the critical thing to do is put it together. As a general guide you need to do a minimum of 2 sessions in each sport, so if you are only doing 6 sessions the choice becomes 2 per sport. You can also look at combining two or more of the disciplines into a session - I think this is a really effective way to use 60-90min. For example you might choose to swim on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and then run on the treadmill at the pool or go and run from the pool, come back have your shower and breakfast and go to work. One of my favourite workouts is to run 20-30min to the pool, do a 30min swim and then run 20-30min home! Two sports 60-75min for the total workout, that is good effective training. Another good one is the simulation - a swim, bike, run workout on a Saturday can also be done before 10am leaving you the day to do other things. Wednesday's workout could be 45min on the turbo trainer in your garage and then 45min run from your house - again, that's a fairly effective 90min workout and its specific to triathlon.

Example of a programme for an athlete looking to do 2hrs swimming, 5hrs cycling and 3 hours Running

Suddenly 10 hours looks a whole lot more when you get it into a schedule! You may find that when you come to do this step that you need to go back and adjust the time per discipline.

Obviously you won't be doing these workouts every week (it's unlikely that you would you get the most benefit if you did this every week) to fit in with races, other commitments and the need to progress. It is always great to have a base plan like this to get things started. If you are not ready to do the base plan right away, you can go and look at how to build safely toward this level. After you are able to successfully complete a program like that above then there is the matter of what to do in the sessions but that is a whole other article!

So there you have it a 3 step process to help you plan your training schedule.

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